September
2, 2014 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Across
northern Syria and Iraq, Kurdish forces are locked in fierce battles with the
murderous “Islamic State” (IS) armed force. Whether directly or indirectly, the
whole Kurdish people is being drawn into this struggle.

In
late August the Syrian Kurdish resistance forces announced they had defeated an
IS push around the town of Jazaa in north-eastern Syria, close to the Iraq
border. Hundreds of IS fighters were killed in the August 19-31 battles.

The
IS attempted to cut off the YPG-YPJ (People’s Defence Units-Women’s Defence
Units — the military arm of Rojava, the Kurdish liberated area in northern
Syria) from their forces over the border in Shengal (Arabic name: Sinjar). The
IS wants to establish a corridor linking Mosul and its possessions in Iraq with
Al-Raqqa, its main stronghold in Syria.

The strikes were aimed at the extremely violent multinational terrorist group that was until recently known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), but which renamed itself simply the "Islamic State" on June 29, to reflect that its ambitions are global. The group originally emerged in the aftermath of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

International gangs of Salafi Sunni Muslim fundamentalists have been a feature of world politics since the end of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1989. To fight the Soviet occupation, the CIA, working with Saudi Arabia, had recruited a Salafi force from all over the world but having achieved this cut them loose. International groups of Salafi fighters began appearing wherever there was large-scale armed conflict in the Islamic world, while the mainly Saudi leadership of the network (prosaically named “the Base”, or Al Qaeda) engaged in escalating attacks against their former sponsor, the US, culminating in the 9/11 attacks.

August 12, 2014 – Links International
Journal of Socialist Renewal/Green Left Weekly --The Kurdish people are
facing an unprecedented challenge. Across a vast swathe of northern Syria and
Iraq, the region’s Kurds are locked in a desperate and heroic struggle with the
genocidal forces of the so-called Islamic State (IS). Fighting is raging from
Aleppo and Kobane in Syria to Mosul and Kirkuk in Iraq — and all points in
between. (The “front” is enormous: for example, the direct distance from Aleppo
to Kirkuk is over 650 kilometres.)

June 21, 2014 -- Green Left Weekly -- US President Barack Obama announced the deployment of 300 special
forces troops to Iraq on June 19. It followed a week of denials that the
US would respond militarily to the rapid advance toward Baghdad of
anti-government forces led by the Sunni fundamentalist Islamic State of
Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Obama’s announcement contradicted his previous statements as well as
itself. On the one hand, he insisted the role of the special forces
would be limited to “advising” forces of the US-installed Iraqi
government, saying: “We always have to guard against mission creep. So
let me repeat what I've said in the past: American combat troops are not
going to be fighting in Iraq again.

“We do not have the ability to simply solve this problem by sending
in tens of thousands of troops and committing the kinds of blood and
treasure that has already been expended in Iraq.”

But he also said: “We will be prepared to take targeted and precise
military action, if and when we determine that the situation on the
ground requires it.”

Australian education minister Christopher Pyne told Channel Nine on
June 20: “The United States obviously has to lead any kind of response
in Iraq as they are the world power, if you like. If they ask us for
assistance, we’ll weigh that up at the time and decide what we can or
can’t do. The situation in Iraq is obviously very, very serious.”

June 25, 2014 -- Syrian Revolution Commentary and Analysis, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission -- As a coalition of Sunni-based forces, including the Islamic State of
Iraq and Sham (ISIS), took the major northern Iraqi city of Mosul and
then most of the Sunni heartland in the north and west of Iraq, regional
and western capitals went into crisis mode: the entire post-US
occupation stabilisation had collapsed in a heap.

June 19, 2014 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The US, Australia and other partners-in-crime in the war on Iraq must not be allowed to use the latest developments in that country to increase their military intervention in the region. The Socialist Alliance adds its voice to others in Australia rejecting Prime Minister Tony Abbott's all-the-way-with-the-USA commitment made to US President Barack Obama over Iraq.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a monstrous war crime. Millions of people have died or been displaced as a consequence of that invasion and the subsequent occupation. The leaders of governments that ordered that invasion and occupation – chief among them former US President George W. Bush, former British PM Tony Blair and former Australian PM John Howard – need to be brought to account as war criminals.

The invasion of Iraq did not bring democracy but simply replaced one brutal regime with another more pliant to Western imperial interests. The invaders cared nothing for the people of Iraq and region and acted to advance the selfish interests of the powerful corporations they serve.

February 22, 2013 -- Green Left TV -- The Green Left Report hosts a roundtable discussion and debate on the
millions-strong protests prior to the US war on Iraq, held around the world on February 15, 2003. The roundtable includes some key activists at the time who reflect on
the strengths and weaknesses of the protests in Australia and lessons for
progressive struggles today.

Pip Hinman was a leader of the anti-war
movement in Sydney at the time; Nick Deane convened a local peace group;
and Jim McIlroy, who has been an anti-war activist since the Vietnam
war, was part of the Brisbane protests. Also featured is an interview
with Simon Butler, who led Books Not Bombs protests of high school and
other young people opposed to the war. Hosts are Mel
Barnes and Peter Boyle. Footage of the 2003 anti-war marches in Sydney by John Reynolds and Jill Hickson of Actively Radical﻿ TV. The episode ends with Carlo Sands critiquing the
notion of the "lesser evil".

Produced by Green Left TV -- media for the 99%. Watch it, share it, film it, support it

September 6, 2012 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Abdullah Ocalan
is (or was -- it is uncertain if he is still alive) the leader of the Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK), a group fighting for the rights of the oppressed Kurdish
minority within Turkey and in the Middle East more broadly. Ocalan has been
held in a Turkish prison on the island of Imrali since being kidnapped from
Kenya by Western intelligence agencies and handed to Turkey in 1999.

This book was written in prison, as part of an appeal
to the European Court of Human Rights. It was later adopted as a manifesto by
the PKK at its 2002 congress.

Tariq Ali on Russia Today, July 13, 2012: "We have a very grim, polarised situation in which the choices are limited: either a Western-imposed regime composed of sundry Syrians who work for the Western intelligence agencies ... or the Assad regime. It's clear the people of Syria want neither ..."

By Phyllis Bennis

June 28, 2012 -- Znet -- Fifteen
months on, the short Syrian spring of 2011 has long since morphed into a
harsh winter of discontent. Syria is close to full-scale civil war. If
the conflict escalates further, it will have ramifications far outside
the country itself. As former UN Secretary-General and current envoy of
both the UN and the Arab League Kofi Annan put it, “'Syria is not Libya,
it will not implode, it will explode beyond its borders.”

Based on definitions of war criminal and crimes against
humanity, there would be an argument to be made that he would fit into
that category,” she said in Washington.

But I also think that from long experience that can complicate a
resolution of a difficult, complex situation because it limits options
to persuade leaders perhaps to step down from power.

This raises a number of interesting questions regarding the
application of international law to heads of state and corresponding
government officials. What constitutes war crimes, and how can we
evaluate whether or not a state leader is a war criminal?

Part 1: In the
belly of empire

“There must be some
way out of here’, said thejoker to the thief,
There’s too much
confusion, I can’t get no relief.
Businessmen, they
drink my wine, ploughmen dig
my earth,
None of them along
the line know what any of it is
worth.” -- Bob Dylan[1]

Photos and text by James Rodríguez, Santa Monica, Los Angeles County, California

November 11, 2011 -- Mimundo.org, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with James Rodríguez's permission -- The
armistice that ended World War I was signed on November 11,
1918. Since then, many allied nations have adopted the date to commemorate
members of the armed forces who have served in a war. In the United
States, this day is observed as Veterans Day.

This year’s holiday marks the eight anniversary of a unique
commemoration carried out by the Los Angeles chapter of Veterans for
Peace (VFP) on the sands of world-renowned Santa Monica Beach. Every
Sunday since Veterans Day 2003, numerous VFP members and volunteers have erected a temporary and symbolic cemetery aptly named Arlington
West Memorial. White crosses represent one fallen Iraq or Afghanistan war veteran, while red crosses represent 10 US servicepeople killed
in action in these two wars.

November 7, 2011 -- ML Update -- It was Iraq in 2006. It is Libya today in 2011. In 2006, the administration of US President George Bush had celebrated the conquest of Iraq by exhibiting the mutilated body of Saddam Hussein as a prized trophy. The spectacle of celebration of Libya’s "liberation" is turning out to be remarkably similar. On October 20, 2011, the world came to know about the ruthless elimination of Libya’s deposed ruler Muammar Gaddafi. He was captured alive – and unlike in the Saddam case there was no pretence of a trial – only to be murdered brutally and his blood-streaked body was put on display in a commercial freezer at a shopping centre in Misrata. Around the same tIme his son, Mutassim, was also captured and killed in Sirte, reportedly the last stronghold of the Gaddafi regime. While Barack Obama's administration and NATO immediately hailed the "liberation" of Libya, US and French flags could be seen being waved on Libya’s streets alongside Libyan flags.

September 17, 2011 -- Antipodean Athiest, posted atLinks International Journal of Socialist Renewal with the author's permission -- Near where I live in Sydney, there is a war memorial commemorating
all those people from the area who have died serving the Australian armed
forces in wars overseas. There are columns for each war Australians have
participated in, followed by the names of those who never returned.
For instance, there are columns for World War I (1914-1918), World War II (1939-1945), the Korean War (1950-53), and also the "International
Campaign against Terrorism (2001– )". Notice that last one? Unlike
the others, the war on terror has no end date.

The horrific terrorist attacks of September 11 prompted justified
outrage at the perpetrators and sympathy for their victims. Since then,
there has been a continuous barrage of war crimes, an escalation of US
wars in the Middle East, new offensives against Iraq and Afghanistan by US imperial power, and a steady erosion of democratic civil
liberties in the name of a "war on terror". In fact, the first decade of
the 2000s can rightly be called the savage decade.

The following article, reposted from Jadiliyya, was written before the entry of rebels into Tripoli on August 20-21, signalling the looming collapse of the Gaddafi regime. It offers valuable analysis of the dynamics between imperialism and the rebel movement and the Libyan masses. It contends that the Western powers, in an attempt to control the uprising, rationed their military support to ensure that significant sections of the Gaddafi state would be retained in any post-Gaddafi regime.

May 20, 2011 -- Early in May 2011, Osama bin Laden, a Saudi billionaire criminal
and religious fanatic, was murdered by US Navy SEAL troops in Pakistan.
Bin Laden was a reactionary political figure, who promoted
obscurantist, fundamentalist prejudices in the service of criminal wars
and terrorism. He was a long-term ally and asset of the United States,
whose repugnant views and activities were cultivated throughout the
1980s during Washington’s Cold War campaign against the secular,
socialist government of Afghanistan.

March 29, 2011 -- ABC Radio's Big Ideas -- In 2008, Obama could do no wrong. To the
educated middle class, he was an intelligent and reflective writer who
had penned his own insightful memoir. To the conservative elite, he was
a Harvard graduate and expert in constitutional law. To the young
people who came out in droves to vote for him, he liked the same TV
shows, listened to the same music and "got" social networking.

March 19, 2011 -- On March 17, 2011, the UN Security Council
passed a resolution authorising military intervention by the Western
imperialist powers or their puppets in Libya. The justification for this
is to prevent further loss of life in fighting between forces remaining loyal
Muammar Gaddafi and forces supporting the uprising that began on February 15
against his 42-year-old rule, and to support the pro-democracy forces.

However, the imperialists’ claims to be in
support of democracy,and concerned
about loss of life, are contradicted by events in Bahrain, a key Western ally
where the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet is based. Here the US response to brutal attacks by
the monarchist government against unarmed, non-violent pro-democracy protesters
has been to call for restraint — by both sides.